Review of 70-532 Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions Certification preparation course by Scott Duffy

In our earlier post we have described steps about how you can prepare for Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions Certification. But, if you have just started your journey in Azure than it will be a good idea to start with the Azure developer certification which is 70-532 Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions .
If you are an absolute beginner you can start with free Azure account.  It will help give a good understanding of Azure. But, be careful while using the resources because as we get free hand access to resources, we tend to spin up lot of instances and forget them running. This may end up with a huge bill. Best practice is that you setup a billing alert to avoid any shocks at month end.
To further hone your skills you can either go for Azure classroom training or go for online courses. The classroom training will cost you from USD 800 to USD 2000. While the online courses can cost you from USD 10 to USD 300, depending on which course you choose.
As mentioned in the last post since my experience with online courses was good as it give you good foundation, so I prefer to go the online way.
When I started my search for a suitable course I zeroed in on 70-532 or renamed AZ-203 Developing Microsoft Azure Solutions Certification  course by Scott Duffy on Udemy.
Scott himself is a certified architect and got a rich industry experience. Going through the course content I found that it covered almost all exam topics. Also Scott keeps on updating the content as the syllabus changes. And if you buy from Udemy you get free life time access to the course so I went with this one.
As of Dec-18 the course contents 10 hours of video and a practice test. Also, you get lifetime free access to the course on Udemy.
It’s a good idea to follow all the labs with the instructor and once you get confidence redo the labs independently. Don’t forget to complete the practice quizzes to check your knowledge.
You can also supplement your preparation with practice Tests for 70-532 Developing MS Azure Solutions  .

Solved : How to simply install python pip on windows?

The latest version of python is shipped with pip. But, if you are using older version of python 2(<2.7.9) or python 3(<3.4) and still need pip on windows please follow the instruction below.
If pip is not installed or the path is not set correctly you will get an error like below while invoking it in windows command prompt.

pip install sklearn'pip' is not recognized as an internal or external command,operable program or batch file.

Here are the steps to get pip in your windows box.

• Download get-pip.py . Copy and paste the contents of the link in a notepad and save it as get-pip.py, remember not in .txt format but .py format.
• Next install it.

python get-pip.py

• Find the recently installed pip.exe in your machine. It’s generally in C:\Python27\Scripts or similar folder depending on the python version you installed. You can set the path variable in windows using these instructions.

– Search for “Advanced System Settings” in your windows machine.
– Click on the tab “Advanced”. In it click on Environment Variables.
– In the new window click on System Variables.  Select “Path” and click on “Edit”.
– Click on new and enter C:\Python27\Scripts\ in the space.
– Finally click ok to all windows and re-open command prompt.

• If you have followed the instructions correctly you will now be able to install packages using pip.

pip install sklearn

That’s all you need to install pip in windows.
Tip:- Some people make mistake of executing pip from Python interpreter and get the below error.

>>> pip install sklearn

File "<stdin>", line 1

pip install sklearn^SyntaxError: invalid syntax

>>>

But, from the above tutorial you now know that pip is installed and executed from command prompt and not from the interpreter.
Hope you find this simple tutorial useful. Let us know in comment section if you face any issue.